The natural disaster was the hurricane. That much is obvious. The rest of the tragedy was man-made, a humanitarian catastrophe and a bureaucratic fiasco that seems to have little precedent (if any) in this country. Whether 'global warming' is at issue is debatable. Obviously, warmer water will lead to more powerful hurricanes, which almost invariably target the Gulf coast. But I don't see the connection between global warming, if it does indeed exist, and extreme weather. Perhaps it is more accurately regional warming, caused by an unseen mechanism. Granted that such warming exists on a global scale, is there an a priori reason that it will lead to more powerful hurricanes such as Katrina? I welcome a lively discussion on this matter.

I'm a racist, you're a racist and Jesse Jacksons a racist. The differences between us are that I'm an honest racist, you are a racist in denial and Jesse is a manipulative racist. If you saw two children drowning in a river and realised that one of them was your child, the natural reaction would be to try first and foremost to save your own child. You would have made a choice based on genetic proximity. That's what racism is. It is natural to favour people who are genetically similar. By doing so, we increase our chances of preserving a shared genetic legacy. We are programmed by nature to do this. It is no more "wrong" to favour one's own ethnic group than it is to favour one's own family. Nor does it mean that you "hate" other families or other races.

My my! Still trying to hide your hollow arguments behind a facade of verbose, redundant Marxist rhetoric? Paul accuses me of stereotyping Blacks as "lazy welfare dependents" and without taking a breath continues to stereotype Whites as being "savages" who segregate and discriminate against Blacks. I am accused of being a racist because I talk about "the Blacks" by a man who bases his whole political faith on a belief that White people are uniquely and intrinsically evil. Have you ever considered Paul, that the Black sub-culture may actually be more tolerant of welfare dependence than White, Asian or Mexican culture, and that White Marxists (hello!) who encourage this trait are perhaps the worst thing that ever happened to Blacks? Why don't you ask Bill Cosby?

Hi Eric. Classical mechanics still work, they just get replaced on a micro and macro level. Same with social issues. Different models can work on different scales. A problem would be to get a consensus on Parecon as a preeminent teoretical tool. Replacing communalism, different shades of marxism, anarcho-syndicalism etc. Different models working side by side sounds good. What models do they implement in Venezuela i wonder ?

"Cult" will be any group with a belief-system and a narrow wiev of competing cults. The cult of the elephant versus the cult ofthe donkey or the cult of the sickle ? The marxist equivalent of coordinator-class will be (petty)burgoise The division of human beings into groups is for purposes of investigation. The real picture of human intercourse is not downputable paperwise. As for comparison of cults. Pauls wiev of a revolution soon to come compares to the christian wiev of kingdom soon to come. No ? Democratic practice exists in ancient pre-civilized societies both nordic and sub-saharan. Our ancestors werent all that stupid, but every generation needs the lesson learned a new. Are you sure about your moral superiority Eric ?

I question whether it's all that fair to say that Marx missed the coordinator class (cc). Sure there's Bakunin warning about the red statist bureaucracy, but I'm not sure that class was all that terribly well and visibly developed under the classic Victorian capitalism Marx so exhaustively studied and critiqued. Mid-20th century Marxists and/or Lenninists have less excuse as the cc is so much more clearly developed at the heart of "managerial" monopoly capitalism and in the Stalinist red states. I remember reading a book by a dissident Eastern European Marxist named Rudolf Bahro (The Alternative in Eastern Europe...1980s)who was very adamant criticizing Marxism that ignored young Marx's insights on the critical role of core labor process inequities (capitalist social division of labor) in the replication of class hiearchy within and beyond the workplace. It's darkly gratifying to see noxious "Calvin" slowly but surely revealing himself as a miserable little racist. His previous use of the phrase "the Blacks" and his subtle conflation of Nagin with, well, "the blacks" make it all pretty clear. How odd and revealingly racist to say that black Katrina refugees will turn to "white people of course." Those damn lazy welfare dependents...just waiting for over-burdened, put-upon whitey to take of them...right? Black refugees will turn to the yes majority-white and predominantly white-run and white-owned society that so savagely segregated and impoverished them in the first place. And speaking of race, how does frequent commenter cryofan propose to avoid it in the discussion of what's happening in New Orleans and across the Deep South right now?

MTbrad, to answer your first question, "who will the mainly Black refugees turn to?" Easy! White people of course. One of the many differences between the Cuban situation and the New Orleans situation is that the Cubans were not burdened by a hysterical incompetent like Ray Nagin, whose organizational abilities, vis a vis evacuation, were inversely related to his talent for pissing and moaning and blaming whitey after the event.

I just found this article http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/324167.shtml It talks about how a cat 5 hurricane riped through Cuba and how 0, yes zero people died. You see the government sought to and exceeded in evacuating 1.5 million people including the poor and people of color. And don't even start, I know cuba is a dictatorship. It just shows how if a countries priorities are not on individual greed, it can protect its people.

Back on topic where will the mostly poor, black refugees of hurricane Katrina turn towards to insure this does not happen again? Will the nation begin to see the flaws of neo-liberal economics and the failure of corporate citizenship to help them in their time of greatest need? Will we begin to see the greater good and potnetials of our society beyond the market? Could this be the moment of a gigantic rearticulation of class consciousenss and a reinvestment in a societal order pursuant of peoples actual needs? Interesting how all the radical work in the world could not have predicted the impetus event that would welcome in epochal shifts in the politics of a nation. The current work of revolutionaries should be to focus on the falures of the current state to fullfill its duty to protect and care for its citizens. To show the cracks in the system which may have exacerbated the problem and which lead to the deaths of many poor people and to help ignite within the poor a revolutionary spirt to begin to address their needs and desires.

Does anyone think this event will usher in the demise of neo-liberal economics? My first thoughts are that the general public will once again begin to see how there is a need for a public safty net and that the role of the government is to help people, not corporations. IT will be really hard for congress to push for making the tax cuts perminent following a display of such ineptitude such as we have seen. Finally Eric, in seattle and since us "lefties" have been organizing ourselves around consensus models. This predates paracon, although without the ability to pray to the high priest Albert. It grew out of a desire to make the decision process more democratic and open which is something marxists have been working on for centuries. There are many who disagree with Alberts coordinatorist notion, I can make you a list if you like. You should read these critiques and see if you still feel as strongly. Isn't it kind of coordinatorist to try and say this is how we will build the future society without garnishing input from everyone?

I am so disgusted at this point, I can't see straight. The contrast is so striking between who is helped or abandoned by this adminstration that it is almost unspeakable: http://notinhisname.blogdrive.com

Adressing poverty demands newtech. Using the old powertoys increases energy-demand. We need architecture and proper engineering. The distribution of shit and workload: There are professors fleeing oppressive regimes, cleaning toilets. Their knowledge not appreciated under current regime. ( Waste ) My former squat let people get reduced rent for the toilet-duty and other neccesary work. Paint, carpentry etc. If not enough wanted this deal, we commandered ourselves out after some democratic yelling. Agree its a point sharing work that many find demeaning. How are you guys about Communalism ? Personally i dont want any more theoretical soup. I am full ! Would like to try a parecon collective though. Where can i find lists of locations ? PS Pareconists need to get into the venezuela/bolivia-scene. Its were its at.

I meant "Insights are all that thinkers can offer and it would be a mistake to treat great minds as infallible" in the above post. MTbrad made an excellent point. Any outline of post capitalist society has to be vague by its nature. A society is not an artifact that you can "design" in a lab or in Albert's head. It is an organic thing that evolves, grows and mutates. One can only outline some general principles and goals. Beyond that it is shear fantasy and you may as well write science fictions. I am very skeptical to grand utopian designs with a lot of details such as parecon. Having read some of Albert my impresson is that he systematically disregard or underestimate the problem of complexity. Parecon sounds good on paper but it is also very fragile because it involves a lot of wilful designs and is too rigidly structured.It is not a roboust system. In any case this is not a thread about possible worlds in the romote future. It is about a very concrete and current event. Michael Paranti has an excellent article on znet in which he highlights how some concrete factors contribute to the high death tolls. These include mindless development; government underfunding of infrastructures; relaxation of enviromental oversight; cutting of enviromental monitoring agencies; poor folks were hung out to dry when the disaster struck, etc. These are very down to earth issues. Poverty is a very concrete issue.We can and have to address them here and now.

Marx has some flaws but he also offered some powerful insights. Insights are all that thinkers can offer and it would be to treat great minds as infallible. So Marx missed the coordinator class. Big deal. He was not a god and one should expect a lot of gaps in his analysis and when such gaps are detected other people can fill them in. This in no way diminishes Marx's work. Actually Albert's definition of "coordinator" is unclear and somewhat problematic if you want to be logically rigorous. Physcists never argue Einstein was greater than Newton because Newton was wrong about gravity(and other things as well) This kind of "debate" only happens in politics or religion where personality and dogmas have a lot of currency. In the sciences it is a given that even great minds are fallible(with 100% probability.This simple fact seems to be a novel idea in religion and politics. The pareconists on this site often exhibit an almost cultish sectarianism. They debate on every fine point as if there is a fat chance that their pie in the sky utopia would be a reality any time soon. I don't know whether under parecon there should be toilet cleaners and I don't particularly care. I am more concerned with toilet cleaners of the world making a decent wage. This may not sound very glamourous and visionary but it is nothing to scoff at if you clean toilet for a living.

By no way to undermine the seriousness of this discourse, but I felt compelled: Amen brother ! Halleluja sisters ! Street you Rock ! Thank you mister. ( Seriously ) :-) Well rock them streets, yazz,hip-hop, beat, yeah ! Every freak till moneys just a token, and all them walls are broken. So to yall cats Now go play Fats Know where its at. Them rats got fat, and dog is biggie backwards. Not similar, just opposite and I aint got no more yall know the score. Thats it ! ( Peace )

I agree Paul that we need models to prepare for the post capitalist society. The point I was attempting to make was that when people dismiss Marxism they dismiss a great tool for social critisism and anylisis, not to mention ways to percieve how to organize a true revolutionary movement. Also the tendency of many Anarcho/paracon-ites is to dismiss Marxists and to create division amongst people who for the most part have very similar goals. The way I aproch it is that Marx and others offer ways to anylize and point out the flaws in capitalism. Likewise Albert and others point out possible ways to organize society post capitalism. But, just as I don't look to marx for every critique of capitalism one should not look to paracon as the end all be all soulution. As such we need to be generally a more inclusive movement if we are to succeed. I also find fault in the belief that Marx advocated some sort of totalitarian state, or that the states that claimed to be Marxists existance should constrain us from using marx and claiming to do so.

Personally, I'm feeling good about them (even though I'm at least 57 percent Marxist) but this feeling is crowded about by more more immediate concerns in really existing society, which produces nightmares like what has been unfolding in the Deep South. The current pressing nightmare displays the big disparities and the need for radical societal transformation in the most powerful nation on earth. A classless parecon/parepol/pare[...fill in the blank] society with BJCs (or some other radically democratic version thereof) at its core may well be part of the solution and sure there's no reason not to build as much of the new as possible within the womb of the old. I suspect world capitalist system is approaching its end game and it will be good and useful to have alternative radical models ready to run.

Eric, I understand balanced job complexes, parecon and Marxism, I don't understand your question or why you cannot answer any of mine. You asked me a ridiculous question about how I feel about balanced job complexes, what do you mean?

Keir, yes: people are dying for bottled water and dominant media has helped focus many white Americans on the alleged inherent savagery and criminality of ---- to use "Calvin's" (who would appear to be, yes, a racist...among other things) phrase --- "the Blacks." "Shoot to Kill" is a phrase well recalled by a Chicagoan like myself: that was Richard J. Daley's order to his police force during the ghetto disruptions that broke out after the execution of Martin Luther King, Jr. The New Orleans tragedy especially has done more than anything I can remember to rip the clothes off the societal emporer...to expose the deadly, perverse, and interrelated imperatives of empire, inequality, racism, and (petro)capitalism. (Martin Luther King, Jr. used to talk about the "triple evils that are interrelated: racism, economic explolitation/capitalism, and militarism/imperialism). I walked into two large classrooms and one public lecture room yesterday and all I had to do was note the irony involved in huge parts of the Lousiana and Mississippi National Gaurds being deployed in Iraq and we were off to the radical races...the recent events lay it all bare for ready dissection. This whole terrible tragedy is a living history seminar on how the racist-imperialist corporate-state wreaks havoc on humanity at home as well as abroad. As one student confided yesterday, "it looks like we need another revolution." Exactly.

The UN meeting 14-16 sept is allready facing a US 190 point demand and J.Boltons 36 page memorandum demanding retraction of the UN millenium goal and its anti-poverty labour. Liberalisms victory has lead to increased poverty both worldwide and in the US. "Getting real" could be interesting indeed. Ill guess the current powers will stay just that in the time to come. The US espionage against the UN again shows the ruthless will behind our worlds tragic mismanagement. The cost of this is the division of humanity into two different groups of mutual hatered. Prelude to this is the war between the judeo-christian and the moslem worlds. "Getting real indeed" Spreading this to the general Rich versus Poor is next. The new terror-laws take into account the concieved need to controll ethnic groups with ties to poor countries. Average US CEOs make a workers anual pay in a day and a half. The real price of this mammon-worship will be staggering. The US led Globacide is getting real indeed. And on a practical ( short term ) level: Introducing incentives for saving energy would prevent the fall in income for US families. I repeat. The Oil is finite and other sources dont compete.

The pollution in china and the rest of the densely populated far-east region is not inherently a socialist-prenomenen. Just as the polution in MexicoDF is not inherently capitalist. The lack of proper protocol for managing earths finite resources IS a big problem. The natural cycles of climate are slowly changed and extreme weather worsened by the added heat. The argument that earth was warmer in Jura and pliocene falls. At that time the mass of plants was plentyfold what it is now. It was just more life to pick up the CO2. To "Get real" is to face the climatic destruction with something else than childlike denial. To "Get real" is to use new technology in the forefront and not only after. Capitalism needs to many tragedies to "Get real" Its a Meta-tragedy.

What do you mean, "How do I feel about balanced job complexes"? Your question makes no sense to me. If you are asking me what Marx thought of balanced job complexes, he devoted his whole life to them, to give the people responsible for creating the use value of everything there due share. I have read paracon, it is a good idea. Everyone has their own idea of how society should be arranged post capitalism. To say that you or Albert has the best way is in no way objective or democratic. It is a power move to control human beings. THis is why Marx stayed away from these types of discriptive ways society should be built, and stuck with researching and pointing out the problems inherent in the system and trying to predict future problems. Your rejection of Marx based not on his actions but based on peoples interpretations of his views, such as stalin and mao, is too bad. It limits your ability to use Marx's wisdom to help build a better world.

"capitalism will be the engine to rebuild N.O., not socialism." This is not true, the federal government will foot the bill for most of the rebuilding. Thats called socialism Yakov. "The fact that socialism will not be used should be very telling. The fact that N.O. is in a state of anarchy, and not of cooperative socialism should also be very telling." It is telling that people did not also just naturally form markets to deal with the problems. As for the capitalistic reasons for NO to be built on a flood plain, the original french quarter is actually built on a hill above sea level. It is capitalism that proceded to expand into unsafe areas, or sprawl out to low lying areas. If there were anyother variables besides economic involved in the design and growth of NO, I am sure it would not have expanded into the low areas.

Seventy percent of the Chinese population suffer from chronic illness due to industrial polution. Milions of Communist Koreans suffer from malnutrition and the constant fear of starvation.Communist Romania was the most polluted country on earth. Remember Chernobyl, the product of soviet ineptitude? Against this you have one tenuous allegation of a link between hurricane Katrina and global warming. Your whining indictements don't sound nearly as convincing when they bump up against reality. Get real!

Yeah... free trade is so great and indispensable! http://www.isd.gov.hk/eng/tvapi/05_iy14.html (Paul: if you are gonna make a doc on WTO, this commerical will be a must ;b)

Um, I got news for you, the market is dictating that more hybrid cars will be made and used. Here's an article that refutes what started this post. Will anyone read it, or just go on bashing capitalism for the world's ills instead? http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050902/ap_on_sc/katrina_warming_5

Kalvin: Noo!? Theres difference of scale between cops breaking the law and capitalism ruining peoples life and the planetary equilibrium. Bok:Capitalism will rebuild, but allso set a dead end to any further building-plans. You could allso say that Workers will rebuild. Hola Bianca :-) I havent read Parecon, but it sounds like bjc is their workload-distribution with focus on equality. Patton: Yes ! But heres an old problem. The left splitting into small cells with a specialized code preventing others from participating. Q:Does Parecon diverges fundamentally from marxism or is it so similar that it can be called an interpretation ? Ill read that ;-) YAKOVBOK The beauty of capitalism is that if there is a better tool, it will be used ???????? Let me inform you, young man, of hybrid-engines, solarpanels, propanecars, biodiesel, insulation and heatpumps replacing freon. The "beauty" of capitalism is that if there is a better tool, it will be used to late :-(

Are captialism and global warming the causes of N.O. being built on a flood plain? With or without global warming, N.O. was an ecological nightmare waiting to happen. The fact is, capitalism will be the engine to rebuild N.O., not socialism. The beauty of capitalism is that if there is a better tool, it will be used. The fact that socialism will not be used should be very telling. The fact that N.O. is in a state of anarchy, and not of cooperative socialism should also be very telling. As for the poor people who can't move - humans have been moving for milleniums. It's called migration. Siberians crossed the Berring Straits and became "native Americans," Jews moved to Egypt and became slaves, and Arabs moved west from Mesopotamia. If we are true humanitarians, we'd make sure the 480,000 poor people of N.O. didn't go back.

I was searching what "balanced job complexes" means and in the net I found this. I should want to know some of your thoughts about this recension: http://www.jemsfurniture.com/BookStore/isbn0226320723.html Thank you.

Let's see Paul......... "find some basic means of survival". Were these the same "means of survival" that the Blacks of Los Angeles "liberated" during the Rodney King riots? Which would be mainly expensive electrical goods and booze. I wouldn't want the Blacks composing my survival list for a wilderness expedition, "We don't got no tent Cal, but check out ma Nikes!"

mtrmsd that's extraordinary: those six words and accompanying links speak volumes about modern day racism in the post-Civil Rights era. Keir that's an excellent point and quote. Imagine being a Louisiana guardsman who has family trapped back home but you can't help them because Imperial Wizard Dubya and his geriatric hit-man Donny Pentagon have ordered you to senselessly and illegally occupy and terrorize people half-way across the world. I've been watching the big tv newtork talking heads. It's impressive how thoroughly they obey their Orwellian masters by refusing to seriously tackle things that ought to be obvious:(1) the absurdity of flood-trapped American citizens being unable to receive adequate assistance from a federal government that is (a) pouring endless billions of dollars into an illegal, unnecessary war of oil-related imperial choice and (b) maintaining an unimaginably expensive and also oil-related (see Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire) "empire of [700 plus military] bases" spread across nearly every country in the world; (2)the revolting absurdity of policymakers and politicians using resulting gas price increases as a pretext to argue for more drilling and refineries when it appears that Katrina is partly the result of petro-captalist excess; (3) the obvious fact that a disproportionately large number of people who were trapped and unable to escape from N.O. are black. The majority of the richer whites fled in their climate-baking SUVs, leaving many thousands of disproportionately car-less and non-mobile poor blacks to rot in a literal Hell and to get called "LOOTERS" when they try to FIND some basic means of survival. It's all about... well so much of what goes on today is about the oil and gas...it influences everything: where they send troops and build bases; how weather behaves; how and where (all too often in areas that are not environmentally recommended for mass human habitation) development "sprawls"; how transportation is structured and who can and who can't escape from a tropical storm. This "natural disaster" is rich with social construction of a certain petro-capitalist/petro-racist kind. Dominant media can't frame it like that of course. For them 2 + 2 must equal 5. We need to defenestrate the talking heads and their corporate-media colleagues. We need a new Radical Reconstruction --- a revolution that would finish, among other tasks, some of the unfinished business from 1865-1877. Yes, Eric, but that was always there and and the big link on the right side near the top is gone. Maybe its just a temporary demotion. Balanced job complexes --- bring 'em on: I'd like to live in a decent and sustainable society.

IT is funny how at the very moment that the US needs to take action on climate change and to make personal sacrifices to achive a sustainable society is the exact moment that we needed to attack a foreign country and make sacrifices to bring freedom and democracy to them so that they will bring more cheap oil to us. It is as if the republicans some how knew that there would be a problem approching the world...how could they have known this...oh yeah the left has been screaming about it for years! See the right listens to the left then tells everybody we don't know what we are talking about so they can horde the info and use it for their own advantage. Seriously, look at every thing the left has been criticized for in the past 10-15 years, they all came true. We know what the fu@k we are talking about!

The article mentioned in theNewYorkTimes has the ring of the greenhousegas-apologists from last decade. THE WEATHERPATTERNS ARE CHANGING Mr Grey. At the present point in time the need for alternative energy and accomodations replacing the current sewage-factories should be at the forefront. The "modern" infrastructure is probably the biggest hindrance to these reform, but there is advanced technology of construction and water&waste-management available. More than anything its a matter of choosing life rather than death. A point is were industrial magnates will be convinced. They, like men used to hitting women have a problem recognizing their wrongdoing. Guilt and anger wage war and denial reigns. The terapeutic breakthrough recognises both as victims of the inter-systemic economical warfare. The worker as underprivileged. TheMagnates as cut of from the majority of own society and the vibrant culture of the common man. PostScript To Street A lot of searchengines I have tried lately can not find Znet at all. They allso refuse to find searcengines that will. The freedom of speach is a dangerous thing.

See Ross Gelspan. "Katrina's Real Name," Boston Globe, 30 August, 2005 available online at: http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0830-22.htm I notice that ZNet blogs have been demoted: they are no longer link-able off the top page.

Hi Eric Ill read Albert. But any strategy for change is a threat to the static structures of our owners. Any strategy will be sabotaged. All tactics countered. This is what makes this work so hard. Not only will individual ego, untrained in the art of cooperation , demand space, but most democratic and socialist systems wil be infiltrated. I do not see how constructive revolutionary change is possible within the frame discussed here. Reform on the other hand is possible. Historically; Revolutions are spontaneous risings of lower classes, later on controlled by the burgoise. The latent risk of lawlessness and further exploitation is great. I think there is a difference of quality between armed and pacifist revolutions. Both as to the revolt and the aftermath. India and Ghandi would be the prime example. Ot maybe the work of the christian slaves in old rome. Its true that Social Democracy is waning as liberalist international laws force nation to adjust to a common lowest denominator of "civilized" rule. Why not try to change that on the practical level of unions and awareness of the basic rights of citizens. Human rights and so on. I believe this to be a field more fruitfull than ideological debate. At a point the debate will have to end and action start.

MTbrad you're right. Marxism is the way of economic analisys. Marx gave us the first real image of capitalistic exploitments and bugs. marx is not the answer, he is the question, the point of start of the changement.

Eric, while I agree with your analysis of the systemic nature of capitalism, I disagree with your assesment of marxism. First, "Marxism has been tried and it is no good either." When was marxism tried? I mean real marxism, coming out of capitalism the way marx stated it must? I don't see any historical attempts at true marxism. Albert is basically taking true marxism and putting his own name on it. Second, if we can agree that marxism has not been really attempted, then how come it is not the answer? I see marxs' strength in his ability to do the exact structural analysis of capitalism that you just did. Placing blame where blame should go and unveiling the material basis of our organizing of society.

Hmm ;-) It is possible to change the structures though. If BoyGeorge hadnt been such a bluff Texas Ranger and given incentives to buy big butch SUVs he could instead have given incentives to hybrids and cars with less polution and waste. Within the capitalist system the extra cost of newer technology would give extra gross production. Just like those extra tons of steel did. I agree that the problems are structural, but relieving those in power from responibility pertaining to that power and the way they use it, is not in my bok. Stupidity is not an excuse when the stakes are this high. I believe we can push the rite towards a mode of survival. I do not believe we can take their power away. ( In a way this is allso like the social democrats in germany, forcing bismarck to legislate to undermine the SocDems electoral power ) The Rite must steal our ideas and its not important wether they pretend that they came up with it or not.

You did not address the problem of the costs of global climate change not equally affecting the causers of GCC. Yes, insurance rates will rise because of the hurricane. It will also rise every year that global climate change advances, finally bankrupty the insurace industry or the pocket books of most people (except the rich that cause more of the problem). Alot of people cannot choose where they live, this is a luxury of the rich countries and the rich within most rich countries. Again the affects of the increase of catastrophic events caused by global climate change hits the poor and disadvantaged more. These just "happen" to be predominatly people of color. And yes, it is a cycle, but it needs to be broken. By facing the causes of the exturnalization of the true costs of global climate change and to address the inability of the market to do such.

Maybe the point should be that people shouldn't live or build on flood plains, whether it be in N.O. or Indonesia. The same goes for all the "rich white people" that build fancy houses in California on fault lines or on the side of cliffs only to become "vicitms" of mud slides. That N.O. could be devistated by a massive storm has been known for years - well before global warming became an issue. Now, issurance premiums accross the country are going to sky rocket to pay for the clean up, making home owners insurance unafforadable for many, which will create gentrification and displacement of more poor people. It's a vicious cycle.

The point Yakov is that the people who produce the most CO2 and other pollutants that cause global climate change, do not feel the full effects of their actions. It could be explained as a market falure, with the true costs exturnalized to the poor while the market fails to properly react to the needed changes.

Poor "people of color" (opposed to "colored people") are disportionately effected by the weather, whether it be Indonesia or New Orleans. What's the point, that the root of global warming is racism?

The current Economic Hiroshima and the undercurrent of racial mistrust ( divide and conquer ) Is now on that critical point called the Oil-peak. We have spent half the worlds resources of black gold. Selling oil for 60-70 dollars a barrel now is not economically sound but rather an aid to the worlds mismanaged global economy. As coal-based fuels take over the polution will increase further. This was clear ten years ago. I blame all participating politicians, bureaucrats, moneygrubbers, and blind consumers. We can no longer wait for the crisis to be upon us to act. Spread the truth ! And a joke: "SPACE IS THE NEW FRONTIER"